During a recent interview with Polygon, the game’s director Shinya Hiratake reiterated how the title was originally going to star Link from The Legend of Zelda. The idea was still essentially the same - with Link exploring diorama-like levels. Much like Toad, Link also couldn’t jump, making him an ideal choice for such a title. He was also in favour because of his love of spelunking.

Other inspirations drawn from the Zelda games were the boss battles. These elements obviously remain in Captain Toad, with encounters against giant creatures including dragons and birds. Hiratake also elaborated on the character swap, explaining how Link was too courageous, so the development team opted with Toad in the end:

We thought Link would be a little too courageous and he would want to fight enemies with his weapons… Captain Toad is still courageous, but maybe a little bit weaker, and by having a character like that we thought we could have the player focus on the geography and turning the camera, that kind of gameplay. In the end I think it worked out really well.

This isn't the first time Hiratake has discussed how Captain Toad was was created. In 2014 he also spoke about the original concept. Tell us in the comments if you would have preferred the iconic hero, or if you feel the time was right for Toad's own game series.

Edit: The quote from the article provides some further details, but we've known about Captain Toad starting off as a Zelda spin-off prototype for some time now, so I believe the article headline needs a change.

Honestly, Captain Toad is the perfect character for this game. He's cute, a famous mario series character, cheerful, brave-yet-scared, probably is low-borderline IQ, cant jump (obesity issues?). I think Nintendo should develop more games in this series.

Captain Toad is a wonderful game. I enjoyed it thoroughly on WiiU. The thing that really irks me about all of the WiiU to Switch ports is that it probably means there won't be a new game in those series anytime soon. I'd love a new DKCountry or Captain Toad sequel but these ports probably push those off for a couple years.

@Prof_Yoshtonics What was the turnaround time for Captain Toad? Does anyone know the answer to that? As for Donkey Kong, unfortunately, Nintendo’s treated that franchise like somewhat of an afterthought. Which is odd, considering the character’s place in Nintendo’s history. They still make the games(well, farm them out to other people, usually), but there hasn’t been a steady stream of them like with Mario, Zelda, Pokémon or Kirby in a very long time.

@Liam_DoolanI agree with @Tyranexx . To be fair there's only three four Swords games. The original four Swords was a remake of Link to the Past on the Gameboy Advance with an optional side game which was the four Swords part. Four Swords Adventure was on GameCube and is formally recognized as a Zelda Main Line Game. Four Swords anniversary was a limited-time offer free game available for 3DS owners. I would called this another side game, it was effectively the same type of game as in the Link to the Past remake.

@Orin41 I know and it's a shame. I would like to see Captain Toad become a fairly regular franchise. Oh well, it's selling really well right now so maybe this will prompt Nintendo to make more games in the series. Fire Emblem's received a boost so maybe other game series can too now.

Didn't Captain Toad appear in the Mario Galaxy games before Mario 3D World? Or do you mean how Captain Toad levels popped up in 3D World?

Man, I really enjoyed 3D World. Playing that game with my roommates in college was one of my best experiences to date with gaming. Even though I wouldn't rate the game stand alone being more than "above average", the experience of playing it in co-op with friends was so good!

@Liam_Doolan To be clear, I wasn't insulting you guys, it was just me messing around. Anyway, I finally managed to find the video I was talking about that reported this and it is actually a few years old.